Stories for October 2nd 2017

The Falkland Islands budget performance at the end of the financial year in June will show a considerable surplus, far from the £2 million deficit estimate, according to the government's Head of Finance, Andrew Francis.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has said he is not planning a “traumatic” split with Spain, after a disputed independence referendum on Sunday. He said he wanted a new understanding with the central government in Madrid.

The suspected gunman behind the Las Vegas massacre made several large gambling transactions in recent weeks, according to law enforcement officials. The transactions by Stephen Paddock were in the tens of thousands in Las Vegas, the officials said. It was not immediately clear if those transactions were losses or wins.

At least 58 people have been killed and more than five hundreds injured in a mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert. A gunman, named as 64-year-old Nevada resident Stephen Paddock, opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel towards an open-air music festival attended by 22,000.

Pangbourne College is to celebrate its 100th anniversary with a flower festival on the weekend of October 14 and 15, which will also mark 35 years since the end of the Falklands War. More than 40 flower arrangers from 12 clubs across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire are preparing to take part alongside the school’s art department.

Brooms to clean bird droppings, along with thousands of toy penguins, are among tons of items being shipped out to the UK's most remote post office. Each year, four scientists become postmasters, manning the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust's post office at Port Lockroy in Antarctica for four months.

Uruguay's foreign minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa announced he will be meeting foreign secretary Boris Johnson next Monday, in London to address Brexit consequences and Uruguay's interest is reaching a trade agreement with the UK. Although both sides are interested in such an understanding, this will be an initial contact, the strong intention which will have to be followed up by detailed negotiations, points out the Uruguayan government ministry.

Monarch Airlines has ceased trading and all of its future bookings have been cancelled, the UK's Civil Aviation Authority has said. Around 110,000 Monarch customers are currently overseas and the UK government has asked the CAA to charter aircraft to bring them back to the UK.

Britain’s commitment to upholding Gibraltar’s British sovereignty and its right to self determination is as “immoveable as the Pillars of Hercules themselves”, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Sunday night at the Gibraltar reception on the sidelines of the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

Apologizing for losing her Conservative Party's majority at a June election, Prime Minister Theresa May responded to her critics on Sunday by saying she had the right strategy to lead Britain and win a Brexit deal.